Long time readers know I take a dim view of Oregon, a state which believes you are unable to safely pump gasoline into your car. It is a strange place in the best of times, which these are not.
I did my doctoral grad school in Eugene, and in spite of everything got a decent education. Shortly before I arrived people unhappy with the Vietnam War burned the ROTC building. While I was there the National Guard marched through campus with fixed bayonets. And a leading cause of death was one-car-accident suicides, of which our University president was one.
It's a weird state, and as you might expect, its largest-by-far city - Portland - is the heart of its darkness. See a Daily Mail (U.K.) article with many photos showing how the city has basically become a gigantic homeless encampment. Imagine how nasty those tents must get during the six months or more each year when it rains almost every day.
I suppose there is a sense in which Portland is doing the rest of us a favor by catering to the homeless, drugged-out multitudes. But what variety of mass psychosis would convince a city's employed, housed majority to do this to themselves; to allow this disaster to happen in their yards, parks, and streets? Can they possibly believe they've been so evil that they deserve to live in a pig sty surrounded by lunatics?
